The Garden Machete is
made from hand-forged Hitachi Yasuki "white" steel (64 HRC) laminated
to a low carbon steel.
The handle is made from
Japanese White Oak, angled and
flared at the end. The scabbard is wood covered vinyl. The blade length
is 8" and the overal length is 15" . Some specifications on this one :
610 grams
blade is 1.9" wide
center of mass is 1 3/4" in front of the handle (forward grip)
edge is a compound grind
More specifics on the grind, it is a chisel grind, hollow relief on the
back, the front has a short flat primary grind and a secondary convex
bevel which starts at 15 degrees and tapers to 30 degrees (inclusive) at the
edge. There is some discussion on the specifications and general thoughts
on use in the video linked to in the right.
Initial impressions :
handle is slippery and abrasive
blade has a substantial heft
edge is decent acute for a chopping blade
the dramatic wedge profile should provide fluid chopping
the chisel grind is likely to have durability issues
the chisel grind is also going to add cutting versatility
Comparing the rough carving ability to a
#1260 Mora on finger jointed pine
(a very soft wood) the Garden Machete fares well and easily produces
a pile of shavings as noted in the picture on the right.
Cutting 14 points with each blade on the pine
using moderate to heavy
force (25-50 lbs) the average number of cuts to make a two inch point point
produced and average advantage of a 50 (10)% cutting
advantage for the Mora. The reason why the spread is to large (+/- 10)
is that on the first few cuts the technique with the Garden Machete
was a bit off.
Since the cutting is done with the chisel grind down (for a right
handed person) then there will be a tendancy to bite in too deep, so
deep that the cut can not be completed. This is avoided simply by altering
the angle of attack of the cutting. Basically just adjust the angle
the blade is to the wood until a smooth cut can be made with a comfortable
amount of force. Of course the same thing has to be done regardless of
the grind, however it is just more likely to angle too deep with the
chisel grind as it will cut with any angle regardless of the approach
because the grind angle is zero on the back.
The Garden Machete was compared to an
ESEE Junglas chopping some local woods,
some fresh and some seasoned between 2-5" in thickness a few things
were noted quickly :
the nata or garden machete is obviously designed to cut thick woods as it does it well
The raw chopping power in terms of number of cuts was very similar for both blades.
This performance isn't surprising
given the weight and heft of the nata is similar to the
Junglas.
Cutting the small pile of wood as shown in the image
on the right
there was no statistical difference between the two blades
in terms of the number of chops required.
However
there was a fairly large difference noted in regards to fatigue
rates between the two blades as
the Garden Machete was more fluid in the wood. As noted
in the video on the right this difference is fairly dramatic.
This reducing binding or sticking is due to the nata having
thicker blade stock
a much heavier primary grind.
On pieces of wood where the Junglas had to
be rocked out of the wood, the Garden Machete comes out with
at most just a little effort on a pull.
However
even though it has thicker stock and a heavier primary grind
the acute edge angle on the garden machete
compensates and produces a strong
cutting ability.
Moving on to some scrap construction lumber, the Garden Machete was again
compared to the Junglas. Both blades were used to cut some strapping, some
stock pine, some plywood and some OSB. This was more of a check on edge
durability than chopping ability as the chopping ability was identical
as on the actual fresh woods but the lumber in in general harder to cut
as it has
lot of square edges
the plywood is filled with epoxy/resin
it tends to crack and splinter
Working through the dozens of pieces of wood on the right there were no issues
until a fairly sloppy cut was made through a large knot in the pine and
the edge did turn. The dent was pretty severe, it was about half an inch
wide and 1/32" of an inch deep into the edge grind. Chisel grinds are more
susceptible to this type of damage because they are asymmetrically loaded due
to the asymmetrical nature of the bevel. However in order to turn the bevel
then the cut had to be done in the worse case scenario
heavy force
sloppy cut
large knot which cracked in the cut
Working through the above chopping and much further work a rather curious
aspect was noted which was that the blade was not turning as much in the
wood as would be expected due to the chisel grind. Now to be clear
the blade is asymmetric and a difference is felt when chopping from
the left as opposed to the right but the difference was not as much
as expected. Examining the blade carefully it is obvious why this
is the case. As noted in the video on the right the blade is skewed
in the handle and this essentially presents the blade to the wood
as if it was a traditional v-grind. This is assumed to be an intentional
feature however it is ot included in the description of the promotional
material on the website. It does make a fairly significant effect when
chopping as it balances the grind and leaves the only asymmetry due
to the edge bevel alone.
Food
The Garden Machete is not designed to be a kitchen knife but does have a number
of features which make it quite suitable for such work :
dropped blade to cut well to a cutting board
long straight edge for chopping
comfortable and secure handle
no clumsy guards
no serrations, recurves, or other complications
With a nice sharp edge it easily cuts tomatoes, cucumbers, breads and meats,
all foods which are soft and or open up easily when they are cut are readily
processed by the Garden Machete. It is a bit clumsy to use as a paring knife
as it is so wide but basically it is just a very thick cleaver and as long
as it is used on foods which do not wedge significantly it performs well.
of course it is much heavier than a normal kitchen knife but for a small
amount of material it is pleasing to use for such foods.
However if the Garden Machete is used on on thicker materials like potato,
turnip, melon and pineapple then two things are noticed very quickly :
it wedges very heavily due to the thick blade
it tends to cut to the side due to the chisel grind
On very thick foods like a fresh pineapple it becomes very difficult to use,
almost to the point it is impossible to slice, though it can be chopped
up if you have enough skill. For such foods it is readily outperformed
by the Junglas, and of course a traditional kitchen knife. But for
rough preparation, around camp and outside, again it can easily roughly
chop large fruits and vegetables to chunks.
Utility
On some general utility cutting :
light plastics (laminated paper)
moderate plastics (pop bottles)
thick plastics (ties from a screw gun)
The garden machete handles it easily, aside from the point it does not
have a distinct point so starting the cuts can be difficult on some cutting
such as starting a cut on a pop bottle, but once the cuts are started the
fairly acute edge does cut very well as long as the materials are not
very binding as otherwise the blade will bind excessively due to the
heavy wedge nature of the primary grind. But again, similar to the
thicker vegetables, it is easier to chop most of these materials than
actually slice them, the plastic zip ties for example can be easily
lopped into sections far easier than slicing through them.
Using the garden machete cutting up some cardboard a few interesting things
were noted :
if the cardboard was thin then wedging was minimal and the performance was mostly due to the edge angle and thus it cut very well
if the cardboard was thick then the blade would wedge and it would call far behind a thinner knife
Thus comparing it to the Junglas
on cardboard less than 1/8" thick the garden machete was superior
on cardboard more than 1/4" thick the Junglas was superior
In between those two the blades were about equivalent. As an aside, the garden
machete worked well as a scoring tool with the leading square point.
Field
Using the garden machete to split some wood, it was first used
on construction lumber. A few interesting things were noted :
the relatively heavy edge required a lot of force to penetrate
the chisel grind would tend to cut through the wood rather than split it
After splitting a few dozen pieces of 2x4, 2x6 and 2x10 from 4-6" long up to
12-16" long the basic conclusion reached was that if the garden machete
could not chop split it then it was not efficient to try to pound it
through like using a froe. The twisting action of the chisel grind
can be countered by using wrist torque and altering the presentation
of the blade to the wood but it isn't easy or comfortable compared to
a symmetric ground blade and once the blade starts to turn it will
readily cut through the wood rather than split the grain.
Using the garden machete to work some deadfall and clearing some
small dead saplings, a few things were noted comparing it to the
Cold Steel Magnum Kukri Machete :
the garden machete would trim limbs with less force
used properly with the chisel side in it was durable enough to cut even very hard/dead limbs
used improperly with the chisel side out then the edge would ripple readily even on light cuts
the much longer kukri machete allowed more work with less movement
The reduced angle on the garden machete (30 degrees inclusive) vs the kukri
machete (40 degrees inclusive) made an obvious difference in ease of cutting
which was felt trimming the branches. On the softer and younger branches
it was more like the garden machete was cutting while the kukri machete
was chopping. The durability issues are as noted in the video
on the right due to the asymmetric loading of the bevel due to
the chisel grind.
There was however a more significant issue which is that the handle
on the handle on the garden machete cracked during the harder limbing.
The wood split after about five minutes of chopping on some very hard
limbs. Closer inspection later showed that the pins in the handle
are essentially nails and they penetrated from one side almost to the other
and end just under the surface of the wood leaving about 1/8" of wood
above the nail head. The fracture started right at this point and split
the handle. This however was not the most serious problem
as when the handle was removed it was noted that there was a crack in the
body of the blade itself which started just infront of the tang and was
heading up the blade. At this point the blade was retired.
Grip
The first negative noted is that the handle comes slick with a coat
of varnish or similar. This makes the handle fairly slick which
isn't a benefit. This is compounded as the slot cut in the
handle for the tang are left with very square (essentially sharp)
edges and the slippery handle plus abrasive slot makes for an
abrasive combination. These issues however can be
dealt with by sanding the handle coating it with
linseed oil and then filling the slot with a mix
of wood filler and epoxy.
Concerns were raised during discussion about this blade
about using of the garden machete to
split wood by using it as a froe (impact splitting). However as
it could not take heavy chopping on very hard woods it is unlikely
it could take significant splitting aside from as noted previously
wood which is very easily to split, almost to the point it can
be chop split readily.
Edge Retention
As the handle broke prematurely and the blade suffered a split then
the comparative work which was planned was not completed. However
just from general observation the edge retention was significantly superior
to blades like the Junglas for pure wood
cutting which would be expected as the garden machete has an edge which
is significantly harder and has a higher carbide volume but not so much
of either that it suffers micro-chipping. The edge wears very slowly and
sharpening takes very little work as the edge just suffered light dulling
in general no micro-chipping.
Sharpening
As the edge does not tend to take significant damage during wood working
(when used with proper technique) sharpening usually only requires very fine
stones. The procedure is simply to :
lap the front flat grind to keep the secondary bevel from thickening
work the secondary convex bevel until the edge forms clean
lap the back flat to remove any micro-burr
The lapping of the front flat grind can be done only with the shaping stone,
in most cases a 1000 grit water stone was used. The edge and the lapping of
the back was taken to an 8000 grit polish as since it is a chopping blade
and does mainly push cuts then it would benefit in edge retention from
the finest polish possibly.
Chisel Grind
This blade is advertised as a garden machete but outside of Japan that name
The garden machete
is quite a powerful chopping tool, easily able to compete with
a quality hatchet of similar size/weight. The biggest difference
is due to the chisel grind.
The main drawbacks are :
blade drift in cutting
lower durability of the edge
The advantages are :
ease of sharpening (one bevel only)
can work flat to one side of the blade (chisel or plane cuts)
An example of a plane cut can be seen in the video at the right which
shows a fairly straightforward demonstration of the difference between
working with the Junglas and garden machete making a simple point on a
stake.
Overview
Overview :
handle is initially slippery and abrasive
cuts and chops very well (high penetration and fluidity)
the chisel grind has durability issues and adds versatility
the edge retention and ease of sharpening is excellent
the handle has durability issues in heavy chopping
Comparing the rough carving ability to a
#1260 Mora on finger jointed pine
(a very soft wood) the Garden Machete fares well and easily produces
a pile of shavings as noted in the picture on the right.
Cutting 14 points with each blade on the pine
using moderate to heavy
force (25-50 lbs) the average number of cuts to make a two inch point point
produced and average advantage of a 50 (10)% cutting
advantage for the Mora. The reason why the spread is to large (+/- 10)
is that on the first few cuts the technique with the Garden Machete
was a bit off.
Since the cutting is done with the chisel grind down (for a right
handed person) then there will be a tendancy to bite in too deep, so
deep that the cut can not be completed. This is avoided simply by altering
the angle of attack of the cutting. Basically just adjust the angle
the blade is to the wood until a smooth cut can be made with a comfortable
amount of force. Of course the same thing has to be done regardless of
the grind, however it is just more likely to angle too deep with the
chisel grind as it will cut with any angle regardless of the approach
because the grind angle is zero on the back.
The Garden Machete was compared to an
ESEE Junglas chopping some local woods,
some fresh and some seasoned between 2-5" in thickness a few things
were noted quickly :
Moving on to some scrap construction lumber, the Garden Machete was again
compared to the Junglas. Both blades were used to cut some strapping, some
stock pine, some plywood and some OSB. This was more of a check on edge
durability than chopping ability as the chopping ability was identical
as on the actual fresh woods but the lumber in in general harder to cut
as it has
The Garden Machete is not designed to be a kitchen knife but does have a number
of features which make it quite suitable for such work :
However if the Garden Machete is used on on thicker materials like potato,
turnip, melon and pineapple then two things are noticed very quickly :
On some general utility cutting :
Using the garden machete cutting up some cardboard a few interesting things
were noted :
Using the garden machete to work some deadfall and clearing some
small dead saplings, a few things were noted comparing it to the
Cold Steel Magnum Kukri Machete :